About Federal

Federal Color is a small team of artists and designers in St. Louis, Missouri. We're the same people who own and operate St. Louis Art Supply, and we've been in the art materials business for eight years.

Everything we do, from manufacturing to customer service, happens in our Papin Street warehouse. In the front, there's our public retail store and its friendly salespeople. Past the employees-only door, there are racks and racks of art supplies for sale online. Past the racks: our careful packers, shipping orders in recyclable packaging. Past the packers, there's a small studio and a few desks, and past the desks, the Federal Color workshop.

This small area of our warehouse holds a lot of hopes and dreams. We believe in the importance of analog art, and we've experienced for ourselves how it affects us in ways other activities cannot. Studies have validated what artists already knew: working on paper or canvas requires more of your brain (and offers you more in return) than tapping a screen.

That's why art materials have enduring importance, and that's why we decided to make our own. The right medium, in the right moment, can be a powerful source of inspiration for creative people. A certain blue has a tendency to make greenish mixes, for example, and the range of these mixed colors becomes a period in a painter's career. An unusually dark black ink helps with a case of writer's block. A quick-drying neutral grey fuels a rapid-fire series of value studies.

The color cannot take credit for the artist's breakthrough, but it certainly helps. Whether it's a flashy new color or a dependable bottle of white, your materials have enormous potential to shape your work. We'd be honored to earn a place on your studio table.